06/11/09
Text: Max Read
Photographers: Jessica Dimmock
It's hard to deny that Moby has had a weird career—going from a scrappy hardcore kid to a rave god to an inescapable musical presence to an Eminem punchline to, well, whatever it is that he is now—but the weirdest thing about it is probably that the most important decision Moby ever made had nothing to do with songwriting or production, or, in the strictest sense, with his music at all. When he licensed almost every track of his 1999 album Play for use in advertisements, it seemed revolutionary: the future of a stagnant industry, the fullest marriage of art and capitalism, the only smart thing a musician had ever done. And it worked, too. Moby didn't just get rich as fuck, he got famous, too, and for about eighteen months he, and Play's pleasant, textured, sample-heavy tunes, were unavoidable.
And then, in a process that is way not revolutionary, Moby became uncool. He was too mainstream for the rave kids who used to worship him; too techno for the crossover crowd; he sold records, but only, it was assumed, to dentists' offices and cat ladies, who liked the soothing sounds that had been featured on Pure Moods III. Play became an album it was slightly embarrassing to admit that you owned—too soft! Too easy! Too inoffensive! Too popular! And besides, Eminem hates him!
But that sort of missed the point. The fact is, Moby has never been cool. He's hung out with cool people, sure, and been a part of cool music scenes, but Moby himself, in all his short, bald, spiritual-Christian vegetarian glory, is just not cool. More importantly, he doesn't make cool music; in fact, he never has. People who pick up Play or Move or Moby looking for swagger or detachment or sex or any of the things that get coded as "cool" in music are going to be disappointed, because Moby, at his best, is about extreme, unselfish, asexual, sobbing-on-your-knees emotion. His best tracks ("Move (You Make Me Feel So Good)," "Next is the E," "Porcelain") are, to put it bluntly, corny, but they're transcendently corny, in a way that the current crop of nu-rave wannabes can only dream of being.
For that reason, it's unlikely that his new album Wait for Me (out on June 30 via Mute; pre-order it at Amazon) will salvage his reputation among the bitter and cynical. It's a tribute album more than anything else—a mix of nods to the post-punk and hardcore bands of his youth and the to ambient music he's been dabbling in throughout his career, and for those willing to go along with Moby's unabashed nostalgia and hushed reverence for the musicians and DJs he loves, the album is filled with small rewards: the lush cinematic strings that accompany the otherwise rickety Joy Division pastiche "Mistake"; the repeated piano figures in the album closer, "Isolate." And yes, it is corny, if not quite as transcendently so as in the past. But anyone expecting anything else from a guy as weird as Moby probably hasn't been paying attention.
We got a chance to sit down with Moby in his NoLiTa apartment (it's the one with the Bad Brains sticker on the door and the analog synths hanging from the wall; really, you can't miss it)—if you haven't been paying attention, it might do you well to read on.
This is a full day for you, huh?
I've been making records for such a long time, and I've thousands of interviews in my life. And in general, when it's good, I like it. I don't really like phoners all that much, 'cause they tend to be a little stilted. Sometimes they're great. I don't know. Sometimes—the only time interviews can be rough is when you're stuck in a hotel room. 'Cause even if it's a nice hotel room it's just a sterile environment and it's airless and a lot of times you're talking—when you travel—you're talking either through a translator, or to someone where they don't have much command of the English language—which, of course, I respect everyone's right to not speak English. But it makes meaningful conversation kind of difficult. And when you're doing twelve in a row then, if I was a more enlightened person I'd probably be a lot more sanguine with the process. But this is nice; I'm in my studio; I've got a cup of tea.
It's like having friends over!
It's sort of like having friends over; it's like therapy—it's also, you put out a record, and because when I'm making the record I do pretty much everything myself, I have no objectivity. And so this—what's really interesting is putting out a record and having people give me their perspective on it: whether they like it, whether they don't like it, what are the recurring themes they see in it. Because I have no idea. During an interview earlier, someone was asking about the recurring violent themes in the record—and I had no idea what they were talking about, but when I thought about it, I was like, "oh, they're right." So...
It's a good first indicator, before you even see the reviews—
Well, I don't read my own press at all. Because there's—no good can come from me looking at my own press. Because if it's bad I want to kill myself, and if it's good—which it rarely is—it just leads to—it can lead to arrogance; it can lead to self-importance. So it's like—Google sitting over there, beckoning me. And someone pointed out the blog section of Google, so I know it's there, it's just—I try not to use it.
I think that's smart—I mean, I get mad enough when somebody comments on my pieces online, and I have to remind myself that it's not for me to be out there defending myself on the internet.
And I've done that. I've done that, yeah, and it never works out. And I'm so—that's why I'd rather—I have three options. Either I read what's written about me and try to take an enlightened attitude and not get upset when people write scathing things. Or I read it and I get very upset and I try and defend myself, which is also not possible. Or I just try and ignore it. And for me, ignoring it is honestly the only—in the interest of self-preservation, the only option I have. Especially those comments. Because someone might write something nasty, and that's OK—but then you get to the comments, and it's like, these are complete strangers, and they're talking about having me disemboweled! I don't even know these people! Why do they hate me so much? What have I done to incur the wrath of these people who are bored at work sitting in front of the computer?
But I imagine you're also open to criticism from friends and other people you deal with—because even if you're not reading the press about you, you're still going to want to have some kind of feedback on your records.
Oh, yeah, because, again, I have no objectivity. And my perspective is just completely non-existent. And when I make a record, for better or worse, I'm the one writing the songs, and playing instruments, and engineering it, and producing it. So when I listen to the record, I can be blinded to the quality of the music by the production. Or vice versa. Or I can listen to a track and be focused on the kick drum. And not even hear the song—just be like, "Oh, I should've done a better job recording that kick drum," or, "I did a good job recording that kick drum." So it is nice to get outside perspective.
So when you say you have no objectivity, it's not always that you're in love with every record you make—it's more that you can't listen to it with the same ears that everybody else does.
Yeah. And it takes time to regain objectivity. Sometimes it takes me ten years to figure out whether I like a record or not.
Which means you're just now figuring out about Play.
Yeah, I still don't like it that much. I really—it's not one of my—if I look at the records I made it's not one of my favorites.
Ten million people disagree with you!
And I'm glad—I'm thrilled that they disagree with me. I listen to it; I'm like, "Yeah, it's OK. Seems a little obvious in places."
What are your favorite records that you've made?
Well, this is why I'm one of the worst judges of my own music. Because my favorite record of all the records I've made was this album called Animal Rights that I made in 1996. No one else likes it. Of all the ones I've made, that's probably the only one I really go back to and listen to. And it sold nothing. And it got terrible reviews—I think Rolling Stone gave it one out of ten stars. But you know, it had three fans, and they were the weirdest—Terence Trent D'Arby wrote me a fan letter to say that he loved it, on Terence Trent D'Arby stationary. Bono, in a bar, told me that he liked it as much as the first Clash album. And Axl Rose told me that he listened to it on repeat. So the three of them liked it, and no one else! And the tour for that was the most depressing tour I've ever done, because the first part of the tour I was opening up for Soundgarden, and Soundgarden's audience just had no interest in me. And then I did my own tour, and my own audience had no interest in me. And we were playing tiny shows—averaging fifty to a hundred people a night. And the people who would show up—I remember we played at this place in Paris, this punk rock club-collective, the Balaklava? No, it was called the Arapajo—I forget. Maybe seventy-five people showed up, and by the end of the show there were twenty-five people there. It was just depressing. And it wasn't like I was twenty-one years old; I was thirty-two, thirty-three years old, thinking, "Really? I don't have a career." If it wasn't for Daniel Miller, I'd be working at Kinkos. Not that there's anything wrong with working at Kinkos; I'm all for—potheads need to have a job too.
